INSFORMATION SYSTEM

FOR DECISION MAKING

THE AIM OF ISDM
➢ ISDM aims to give to managers of a company the means to identify management alert, to
follow the evolution of activities and to have tools for investigating specific subjects or
phenomena.
➢ ISDM aims to present useful information. This implies that it should be constructed
according to selective criteria by choosing among the statistics those that can be used by
particular categories of users. Its construction therefore implies on analysis of need, itself
based on segmentation of users with regard to the missions to be fulfilled and the
corresponding need.
➢ ISDM provides users with a convenient user friendly consultation tools so as to minimize
the task of finding information and presenting results.
. INTRODUCTION
Long before the advent of computer technology, management of information system (MIS) was
used by leaders of organization or company for decision making effort. However, the decision
making process that was carried at that time was very simple, everything was still going on
manually because all data was still stored in various sheets of archives. With the use or archives,
when leaders needed a variety of information, to be used in decision making, it was very difficult to
find it. The storage of archives is very inefficient. So, to find information, it takes a vary long
time. In addition, the possibility of the effectiveness of the storage method makes some archives
that have been stored damage or not maintained.
The relationship between information system and decision making is a central concern in the field
of information system (IS). The main objective of information system is helping decision makers
by providing accurate and time based information helping them in making the right decisions in
turbulent environments. A successful organization nowadays relies heavily on information systems
to improve its work and to achieve its goals and benefits. Management information systems helps
in solving both structured and unstructured problem environments. This system consists of
computers, people, procedures, databases, interactive query facilities etc. Information is
considered as the most important ingredient for the success in decision making. Due to the
importance of information in decision making, a developed system has emerged to serve the
appropriate informations to managers for good decision making process. This developed
information system (IS) comprises the decision support system (DSS), management information
system (MIS), and transaction processing system (TPS).
 CHAPTER 1 : REVIEW ON INFORMATION SYSTEMS
A) Definition:
1. Information : This is data that has been put into context to give meaning or
understanding.
2. Information system : An IS is all the resources (hardware, software, data,
procedures, humans, etc ...) structured to acquire, process, memorize, transmit
and render available information (in the form of data, text, sounds, images,
etc ...) within an organization.
3. Decision making : This is the act of assessing and making choices. Decision is
taken after going through several calculation and alternative considerations.
Before the choice is made, there are several stages that may be passed by the
decision maker. These stages include
▪ The identification of the main problem,
▪ The development of alternatives to be chosen,
▪ Analyzing the alternatives and
▪ Arriving at the best decision making.
4. Decision support system (DSS) : A DSS is an information system that helps in
decision making that require judgment, determination and sequence of action.
The IS assists the middle and high level management of an organization by
analyzing huge volumes of unstructured data and accumulating information that
can solve problem and help in decision making. A DSS is either human
powered, automated or a combination of both.
5. Management information system : It is a planned system of collecting, storing,
and disseminating data in the form of information needed to carry out the
functions of management.
6. Transaction processing systems: It is an information processing system for
business transactions involving the collection, modification and retrieval of all
transaction data.
B) Systemic analysis of the enterprise
The IS can be compared to a sort of primary help system to the company due to the :
1. Rapid calculation of quality information between the various parties.
2. Delivery of the good information to the right person at the right time which leads to
appropriate decision making by the company.
Like any system, the company is a system open to the environment, having a goal (profit) and
constantly evolving. To achieve its goal, the system takes its environment into account and regulate
its operation by adapting to changes. The elements of a system are themselves systems
(subsystems). The enterprise can be decomposed into 3 sub systems:
1. PILOTING SYSTEM
2. INFORMATION SYSTEM
3. OPERATING SYSTEM
Each system renders services to the other

C) Activities of the subsystem

a) Piloting system
➢ It exploits the information that flow
➢ It organises the functioning of the system
➢ It decides of the actions to be conducted by the operation system.
➢ It reasons based on the objectives and policies of the enterprise.
b) Operating system
 ➢ It is responsible to carry out the task entrusted
➢ It intern generate information for the piloting system which can thus control deviations
and act accordingly.
c) Information system
➢ Stores information
➢ It is also responsible for broadcasting information
➢ It also carries out the tratments necessary for the operation of the sytem.
Example:

Figure 1: Example of information flow

D) Approach to study the IS

The IS is studied in two approaches.
➢ Technical approach
➢ Behavioral approach

Figure 2: Approach to study the IS

E) Functions of the is
1. Information collection
The IS record information (paper, computer, etc) before its treatment. Information
collection has two sources:
➢ The external source which is the flow from partners (customers, suppliers,
administration etc)
➢ The internal source which can be
• Flows generated by the actors of the system (the supply, the production, the
accounting, the sales services, etc..)
• Flows formalized by procedures.
• Informal flows (the social climate, the knowhow, etc..) which is difficult to collect
but of great importance.
2. Information storage
Information is stored to be used later or for legal obligation. Insuring sustainability means
guaranteeing sustainable and reliable. The preferred media of information storage today
are : The computer disk. However, paper remains a medium widely used in business for
preservation of archives for legal obligations.
3. Information processes
To be usable, information undergo processing. This processing can be manual, semi-manual
or automatic.
4. Dissemination of information
To be used, the information must reach its recipient as fast as possible. It can be don
through:
➢ The oral form
➢ Paper support
➢ Digital medium
F) Factors influencing an organization’s decision making
1. The internal state of the organization
This situation has to do with what is in the organization which includes the available funds,
the state of human resources, employee capabilities and the equipment of the organization.
2. The external state of the organization
This situation has to do with what is out of the organization such as economic, political,
legal and cultural conditions.

G) Quality of an IS
1. Speed and easy access to information
Too slow or complicated IS can discourage users. The users must be able to act as quickly
as possible. To do this, there is a need of high performance machines, databases and local
networks. And also user-friendly interfaces.
2. Reliability of information
The IS must provide safe, reliable and up-to date information. Ex: To order an item it is
important to know the stock status. The stock must therefore be put up-to date automatically.
3. Information Integrity
The system keeps the information in a consistent state. The IS must know how to react to
situations that can make the information inconsistent.
4. Information security
The IS should have a backup system. The IS should block external attacks. It can do this
with the use of anti-viruses, firewalls, routers, intrusion detectors etc
5. Information confidentiality
The IS should have material and software resources that manages information
confidentiality
 CHAPTER II : INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING
DECISION MAKING
I. History of Business intelligence
In 1865, Richard Millar Devens presented the phrase “Business intelligence” (BI) in the
cyclopedia of commercial and business actors. He was using it to describe how bankers profited
from information by gathering and acting on it before his competition. BI, as it is understood today
uses technology to gather and analyze data, translate it into useful information and act on it before
the competition. In 1968, only individual with extremely specialize skills could translate data into
usable information.
Many historians, suggest that the modern version of BI, evolved from the DSS (Decision
support system) database. The number of BI vendors grew in the 1980 as many people discovered
the value of business intelligence. An assortment of tools were developed during this time with the
goal of accessing and organizing data in simpler ways.
Some of the tools that were developed to work with the DSS include OLAP (online
processing management system), EIS (Executive Information System) and Data warehouse.

II. Problems of business intelligence

1. Lack of communication during implementation processes
To avoid this, it is important that the communication and the provider occurs on an ongoing
base. The team leader needs to continuously consult the stakeholders to ensure that
everyone is on the same page. As the buying and implementation process are occurring, the
team leader furthermore needs to keep the channel of the communication with the solution
provider open to ensure that the solution meets the needs of the business.
2. The staff do not want to adopt the solution
The software implementation appears to have gone well, the project managers are satisfied,
the solution can do what was expected and users have been given access yet the solution is
not being used. This is often seen when the BI solution does not have an intuitif interface or
requires advanced training.
3. The BI software provider does not understand your industry
When businesses are not seeing the result, they are hoping with their BI and vendors seems
unwilling or incapable of helping their customers, it is also because of lack of
understanding.
 III. Global architecture of a BI
A BI architecture is the framework for the various technologies that an organization
deploys to run business and analytic application. It includes the IT systems and software
tools that are used to collect, integrate, store and analyze BI data and then presents
information on business operation and trains to cooperate executives and other business
users. A strong BI architecture also incorporate policies to govern the use of
components of technology.

Diagram
As shown in the architecture above, the core component include the following:
1. The source system: These are all the system that capture and hold the data identified
and essential for the enterprise BI data. e.g ERP (Enterprise resource planning),
CRM(Customer Relationship Management), finance, manufacturing and supply
chain management systems. They can also include secondary sources such as
market data and customer databases. As a result, both internal and external data
sources are often incorporated into a BI architecture.
2. Data integration and tools
To effectively analyze data collected for a BI program, an organization must collect
and integrate different data set to create a unified view. The most widely used data
integration technology for BI applications is ETL (Extract Transform and Load)
software which pulls data from source systems in batch processes.
3. Analytic data store
This comprises repositories where BI data is stored and managed. The primary one
is the data warehouse which usually stores structured data in a relational, columnar
or multidimensional database and makes it available for querying and analysis.
4. BI and data visualization tools
The tools used to analyze data and present information to business users include a
series of technologies that can be build into a business architecture. For example, the
ad hoc query, data mining or OLAP. In addition, the increasing adoption of self
service BI tools enables business analyst and managers to run queries themselves
instead of relying on the members of the BI team to do that for them. Data
visualization tools can be used to create graphical representations of data in the form
of chats, graphs, and other types of visualizations designed to illustrate trends,
patterns and outline elements in datasets.
5. Information delivery (Dashboards, portals and reports)
This information delivery tool gives to business users the visibility of the results of
the BI and analytic application.
Assignment:
 CHAPTER III: DECISION MAKING AND RESOLUTION
OF PROBLEMS
A) General decision making processes
Using a step by step decision making process can help you to make more deliberate and topfull
decision by organizing relevant information and defining alternatives. This approach increases the
chances that you will choose the most satisfying alternative possible.

Figure 3: Decision cycle

The role of a manager is to supervise its collaborators. To do this, it is necessary to know how to
make choices and choose the best alternative among these choices. It is also important to know the
trap to avoid when taking decisions. We do not necessarily decide in the same way on
administrative, strategic, tactical issues. It is important to know how to take the necessary distance
so as not to let your emotions guide your decisions. Deciding is therefore an art. Fortunately, tools
and methods exist to help the managers to take the right decision. Even if most decision makers
decide between two alternative mainly based on their feeling.

Decision making can have different aspects depending on the context, the situation, the issues, the
personality and competence of the person taking the decision. To decide, the following points can
be taken into consideration:
1. Decide on your own after careful consideration with yourself.
2. Think and decide collectively.
3. Rely on the sound advice of third party experts.
 4. Decide not to decide.
5. Play the Ostrich and live it to chance.
6. Sometimes follow your intuition.
7. Watch how others act in such situation.
8. Etc.

B) Decision making axis

There are generally two main axis for decision making: Alone or in group. Each of these axes has
its trends and limitation.
➢ Decide Alone
If deciding alone is still sometimes for some decision makers a way of establishing some
power, it seems simple at the first glance and has certain advantage. Such as:
• Speed: Taking a decision alone after analyzing the possible options without taking other
people’s point of view is faster.
• It is easy to set up : Deciding alone does not require any meeting organization.
• Withdrawal from various influences and manipulation : A personal choice made
with soul and conscience avoids from being subjected to any hierarchical, affectif,
financial or political influences, etc..
How ever, deciding alone has some drawbacks or disadvantages:
• Lack of perspectives : Emotions can distort the decision especially in the crises
situation when the choice is often made in an emergency.
• Subjectivity : Here, decision is taken according to the personality of the decision
maker, his experience, his knowledge, hierarchical position, etc..
• Wrong decision : Due to lack of competence and or appropriate knowledge regarding
certain specific points, deciding alone can lead you to wrong decision.
➢ Decide as a group
Deciding in group is done in different ways:
• By consensus : Each participant in the decision meeting expresses his/her opinion. It is
not a matter of finding an option that meets someone’s expectation but a win win
agreement where everyone will find his account and will be able to defend at the end of
the meeting.
• By majority : The decision by majority is done through individual vote. The group
refers to itself, to the option chosen by the majority of participants.
• By delegation : Deciding by delegation, is done when designing various representatives
of various sub groups or experts who are responsible for making their voices heard and
who represent them during decision making sessions.
 Similar to the decision taken alone, making a group decision offers various advantages
including:
• Involvement of the whole team in the decision making process : Each member of the
team takes part in the reflection by bringing his point of view and solutions. Everyone
listens to others and becomes aware of new elements. The group uses its collective
intelligence in the service of solving the problem with the common objective of making
the most adequate final decision possible.
• Involvement of team members : Each member fills important as everyone is aware of
the issues and acts accordingly.
• Strengthening of the group cohesion : collective decision strengthens the link between
employees of the same team.
However deciding as a group has some drawbacks.
• Longer and more difficult process to implement : Organization of meeting, collective
brainstorming sessions, drafting of reports etc.. Takes more time and more difficult to
implement compared to deciding alone.
• Conflict in the event of major disagreement and the event of impossible consensus:
An individual who has not voted for the choice of the majority can slow down the
implementation of the given solution or even sometimes sabotage it.
• Dis-empowerment of an employee when represented : Hidden behind their
representative, some individual may be completely detached from any responsibility for
decisions made which alternately harm the entire thing.

C) Traps to avoid when taking an decision

Decision making is a process that can be tricky. It has some traps to avoid:
➢ Decide under the influence of emotions without taking the necessary time to step back for a
relevant factual analysis. Even if a strong emotional dimension is present in this moment, it
is fundamental to remain rational in your positions.
➢ Do not ley yourself influence by third parties.
➢ Avoid making wrong decisions because of lack of knowledge and/or information.

D) Tools for decision making

There are many tools that help to take good decision. They take the form of dashboards with
indicators and matrices. Their objective is to limit risk taking by reducing uncertainty and giving
an overview of the context.
Each situation has its own tool:
➢ Project management with its dashboard to guide the execution of work.
➢ Time management to manage task priority by prioritizing their importance and degree of
urgency.
➢ Marketing process to put together an action plan.
➢ Control management for budget monitoring.
Among the tools available to managers and project managers. There are two instruments
particularly dedicated to decision making.
1. The decision tree
Decision trees are classifiers of data represented by attribute/value sets. A decision tree is
represented in the form of a tree. This tool is used to select a solution among several
alternatives. It is easy to implement. The different options are directly visible on the graph.
Each of them gives rise to new options. These variations form the different branches of the
tree.
A tree is made up of :
i. Nodes : Used to test attributes.
ii. Branches : Which each represent a value of the attribute tested in the node from which
it originates.
iii. Leaves : which represent the terminal node to the tree. It indicate the resulting class.
Example : Diagram
Example :
Create a decision tree from the following data content in the table below. The attributes
are fever, pain and cough. The class is sickness.

Fever Pain Cough sicknes

yes Abdomen NO Appendicite
no Abdomen Yes Appendicite
yes Throat No cold
Yes Throat Yes cold
No Throat Yes ThroatPain
Yes No No Nothing
Yes No Yes cold
No No Yes cooling
No No No Nothing

Exercise:
Determine the tree diagram of the following table:
The attributes are the climate, humidity, PIF(present information). The class if the golf.
PIF Climate Humidity Wind golf
Sun Hot high no Don’t play
sun Hot high yes Don’t play
overcast Hot high no play
rain Good high no play
rain fresh normal no play
rain fresh normal Yes Don’t play
overcast fresh normal yes play
sun Good high No Don’t play
sun fresh normal no play
rain good normal no play
sun good normal yes play
overcast fresh high yes play
overcast hot normal no play
rain good high yes Don’t /play
2. The decision matrix
Decision matrix is a useful technic used for decision making. It is particularly powerful
when you have a number of good alternatives to chose from and many different factors
to take into account. This makes it a great technic to use in many important decisions
where there is not a clear and obvious preferred option.
To realize the decision matrix, it is important to follow the steps below:
i. Step 1 : List all your options in the rows and the factors that you need to consider on the
columns. Example : If you were to buy a new laptop, the factors to be considered might
be:
▪ Cost
▪ Dimensions
▪ Hard disk size
▪ etc …
ii. Score each option for each of the factors in your decision. The score goes from 0 to 5.
iii. Work out the relative importance of the factors in your decisions.
iv. Multiply each of your scores from step (ii) by the values for the relative importance of
the factors that you calculated in step (iii). This will give you weighted scores for each
option/factor combination.
v. Finally, add the weighted scores for each of your option. The option that scores the
highest point is said to be the best option.
NB: If you intuition tells you that the top scoring option is not the best one, then
reflect on the scores and weighting that you have applied. This may be a sign that
certain factors are more important to you than your initial thought.
Example: A marchand needs to find a new supplier for his basic ingredients. He has
four option. His option are (suplier 1,2,3,4). Factors that he wants to consider are: cost,
quality, location, reliability and payment option.
Factors Cost Quality Location Reliability Payment Total
Option
Weight 5 4 2 3 1
Sup 1 1 0 0 1 3 11
Sup 2 0 3 2 2 1 23
Sup 3 2 2 1 3 0 29
Sup 4 2 3 3 3 0 37

3. Law of pareto
The effectiveness and efficiency of a leader lies within his ability to guide…. Towards the
realization of the business plan. Thus, the team should :
i. manage the organization of the company as well as the leader.
ii. The team should know how to organize itself taking into account the difficulties of the
task to be accomplished, the daily challenges as well as the proof of personal efficiency
Pareto’s law invites us to identify the action with the most significant impact and it can be applied
to all areas: Quality, Continuous improvement, project management, innovation, etc.
Pareto’s law is also called the law of 20/80. Meaning that, 20% of the action naturally produces
80% of the results. We use 20% of our wardrobe 80% of the time. 20% of illnesses take 80% of
the time of medical doctors.
Often alone at the helm to carry out their mission, leaders must allow themselves time to reflect on
the processes, their implementation, and the analysis of the result. Efficiency or the ability to get
straight to the point becomes an essential quality.
Some common examples of distribution according to the pareto’s law
i. 20% of customers represent 80% of turnover.
ii. 20% of products represent 80% of turn over.
iii. 20% of sales represent (approximately)80% of profit margin.
Example: You are a merchant and you have a biscuit department, You identify that 20% of
your product makes 80% of your turnover. If you remove the less sold products, the
consequences can be harmful because the consumer will no longer have the feeling of
having a choice. On the other hand, this decision is important for your stock management
and cost, your margin monitoring, your product highlight and information.
4. The matrix of Heisenower
The Heisenower matrix is a simple tool for considering the long term outcome of your
daily task and focusing on what will make you most effective, not just most productive. It
helps you visualize all your task in a matrix of urgence/important. Urgent matters are those
that require immediate action. These are the visible issues that popup and demand you
attention now. Often, urgent matter come with clear consequences for not completing these
 tasks. Urgent tasks are unavoidable but spending too much time putting out fire or trying to
resolve a problem can produce a great deal of stress and could result in burnout.
Important matters on the other hand are those that contribute to long term goals and life
values. These items require planing and thoughtful actions. When you focus on important
matters, you manage your time, energy and attention rather than mindlessly spending these
resources. What is important is subjective and depends on your own values and personal
goals. No one else can define what is important for you.

Urgent Important
Do it Schedule it
Things with clear deadline and Activities without a set of
consequence for not taking deadline that bring you closer to important
immediate action your goals. Easy to
procrastinate on.
Delegate it Delete it
Things that need to be done but Distraction that make you feel Not
don’t require your specific worse afterword con be okey important
skills. but only in moderation
 CHAPTER 4: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF ISDM
A) Basic concept on database and data warehouse
I. Database:
Definition and objectives of databases.
II. Database Management Systems
III. The different database models
1. Hierarchical model
2. Network model
3. Relational model
4. Deductive model
5. Object Oriented model
IV. Data warehouse
Several definitions have been given to the data warehouse concept. At the risk of not being
original, we retain the definition of W. H. inmon who in his reference book “Building the
data warehouse” describes a data warehouse as a collection of subject oriented,
integrated, non volatile data and historiated, organized to support a decision support
process. This definition comprises the following key terms :
1. Non volatile : Data from a data warehouse is generally used in consultation mode. They
can be queried but are neither modified nor deleted (except in the case of warehouse
refresh). This makes it possible to keep the traceability of information in other to be
able to carry out analysis over a long period.

2. Subject Oriented : Data in information systems are organized according to the

applications of a company. These data are application oriented. The data of a data
warehouse are organized by themes or by subjects (Example : Production, sales,
marketing, etc). This organization makes it possible to gather all the information related
to a specific topic in other to facilitate decision making. These data are subject oriented.
 Difference between databases and data warehouse
The main objective of a data warehouse is to store data relevant to decision making needs.
On like operational databases which are designed to support day to day operations, a data
warehouse is designed to support analysis operations useful for decision making. The
following table summarizes the main differences bew=tween operational databases and data
warehouse.

Characteristics Databases Data warehouse

Objectives Running business processes. Running business processes
Usage Support for day to day Support for decision making
management
Design rule It is designed in the third Multi dimensional design
normal form
Data Current data , Raw data Historical and aggregated data.
Operations Reading and writing Reading and regreshing
Users Employees Analysts and decision makers
Size Gigabytes Terabytes

V. Architecture of data warehouse

1. Sources
The data warehouse stores data that comes from different heterogeneous and distributed
sources. These sources can be databases, data files, external sources to the company, etc.
2. Storage
Before it can be stored, data from sources must first be cleaned. The cleaning process
consist of selecting and cleaning the data to eliminate any errors and reconcile the
semantic differences between these data. Once cleaned, this data will be integrated into
a data warehouse. The refresh process consist of propagating to the warehouse the
changes made to the data of the sources by the ETL process. This step consist in
carrying out the transformations necessary to load the data from the sources at the level
of the logical diagram of the warehouse. This is done in 3 steps :
i. Extraction : It consist of recovering data from source system. This step requires
managing the synchronization of the extraction processes in order to ensure the
integrity of the loaded data.
ii. Transformation : It consist of a series of rules allowing the formatting of the data
extracted according to the target schema of the warehouse such as assigning
semantics to the source data and associating a source fields with the target fields
iii. Loading : It allows data to be supplied to the warehouse while respecting the
constraints of the target DBMS. This step must be validated in order to detect and
correct any errors that have occurred during loading. Data concerning the creation,
management and use of the warehouse are stored in a dictionary independent of the
 warehouse. This data is called meta data. Meta data can contain information about
sources and their content, the warehouse schema, the regresh rules, the profiles and
the user groups. A warehouse can include several data stores (data…). These stores
are extracts from the warehouse dedicated to a specific user and meet a specific
need. They are dedicated to the OLAP type decision analysis.
3. OLAP Server
An OLAP server provides access to the warehouse. It converts client request into
requests to access the data warehouse and provides multidimensional views of data to
decision support tools.
4. Front-End tools
These tools format the data according to user needs in different forms : tables, curves,
reports, statistics, etc.
For the OLAP environment, a new modeling approach has been proposed:
A multidimensional modeling: Popularized by Ralph Kinball in the 1990s, this
modeling is now recognized as the most appropriate modeling for analysis and decision
making needs. Multidimensional modeling is a technic for conceptualizing and
visualizing data models. It offers a structuring and an organization of the data
facilitating analysis. Its main objective is to have a multidimensional view of the data.
This modeling is interesting because it represents a model quite close to the way of
thinking of analysts and it makes it easier for users to understand the data. The
multidimensional model contains two fundamental concepts : Fact and Dimension.
i. Table of facts :
A fact represent a subject of analysis. It is made up of several measures relating to
the subject treated. These measurements are numerical and generally valued
continuously. In general, facts are implicitly represented by the combination of
dimension values.
ii. Table of dimensional
The dimension is the criterion according to which, one, whishes to evaluate,
quantify, and qualify a fact. It can be used for the selection of data according to the
desired level of precision. Also, it can be refined, broken down into hierarchy in
other to allow the user to examine his indicators at different detail levels. Examples
of tables of dimension are shown below.
17/04/2023
iii. Data cubes
At the core of the OLAP concept is the OLAP cube. The OLAP cube is a data
structure optimized for very quick data analysis. The OLAP cube consists of
numeric facts called measures which are categorized by dimensions. OLAP cube is
also called hypercube.
 For example, in OLAP, such measures could be the subsidiaries a company has, the
products the company offers and time. In this case, a fact would be a sales event
where a particular product has been sold in a particular subsidiary at a particular
time.

Usually, data operation and analysis are performed on spreadsheets where data
values are arranged in rows and column format. This is ideal for the two
dimensional data. However, OLAP contains multidimensional data with data usually
obtained from different and unrelated sources. Using a spreadsheet is not an optimal
option. The cube can store and analyze multidimensional data in a logical and
orderly manner.

B) Basic analytical operations of OLAP

OLAP has four types of analytical operations :
i. Roll-up
ii. Drill-down
iii. Slice and dice
iv. Pivot(rotate)
(1) Roll-up : This is also known as consolidation or aggregation. The roll-up operation can be
performed in 2 ways:
a) Reducing dimensions
b) Climbing up concept hierarchy (concept hierarchy is a system of grouping things
based on their order or level. )
 In this example, the city New Jersey and Los Angeles are rolle-up in the country USA.
The sales figure of tnew Jersey and Los Angeles are 440 and 1560 respectively. They
become 2000 after roll-up. In this aggregation process, location hierarchy moves up
from city to countries. In the roll-up process, atleast one or more dimension need to be
remove. In this example, the quarter dimension has been removed.
(2) Drill-down
In this operation, data is fragmented into smaller part. It is the opposite of the rol-up
process. It can be done by
a) Moving down the concept hierarchy
b) Increasing a dimensional
Example:

In this example, the dimension months are added. The quarter Q1 is drilled down to the
months January, February and March. And their corresponding sales are registered.
(3) Slice and Dice
a) Slice
Here, one dimension is selected and a new cube is created.
Example :
Diagram:
 The dimension time is sliced with Q1 as a filter and a new cube is created.
b) Dice
This operation is similar to slice. The difference is that, you select two or more
dimensions that result in the creation of a sub-cube.

(4) Pivot
Here, you rotate the data axis to provide a substitute presentation of data. In the following
example, the pivot is based on the item types.
C) Types of OLAP systems

There exist two main ways of designing a system based on the multidimensional model according
to the way a cube is stored: the approach MOLAP and ROLAP.
1. MOLAP:
This is the most traditional method of OLAP analysis. In MOLAP, data is stored in a
multidimensional cube. The storage is not in a relational database but in the proprietory
format.
Advantages of MOLAP
✔ High performance
MOLAP cubes are designed for rapid data recovery and are optimal for slicing
operations.
✔ MOLAP can perform complex calculations. All calculations were pregenerated when
creating the cube.
Disadvantages
✔ There is limited amount of data to manage.
✔ All calculations are done during the creation of the cube making it not possible to
include a large amount of data in the cube itself.
2. ROLAP:
ROLAP works with data that exist in a relational database. Facts and dimension tables are
stored as relational tables. ROLAP also allows multidimensional analysis of data and is the
fastest growing OLAP.
Advantages of ROLAP
✔ High data efficiency
It offers high data efficiency because query performance and access language are
optimized particularly for the dimensional data analysis.
✔ Scalability
 This type of OLAP system offers scalability for managing large volumes of data even
when the data is increasing.
Inconvenience
✔ High demand of resources
ROLAP needs high utilization of man power, software and hardware resources.
Assignment: Bring out the difference between MOLAP and ROLAP.

No ROLAP MOLAP
1 ROLAP stands for Relational Online MOLAP stands for Multidimensional Online
Analytical Processing. Analytical Processing.
2 Used for large database volumes. Used for limited database volumes.
3 Access is slow. Access is fast.
4 Data is stored in relational tables. Data is stored in multidimensional arrays.
5 Data is fetched from data warehouse Data is fetched from MDDBs
(multidimensional database) database.
6 Complicated sql queries are used. Sparse matrix is used.
7 Static multidimensional view of data is Dynamic multidimensional view of data is
created. created.

Three schema are used to model ROLAP.

✔ The star diagram
✔ The snowflake diagram
✔ Galaxy
 MORE RESOURCES
1. https://www.britannica.com/topic/information-system/Acquiring-information-systems-and-
services
2. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/management_information_system/
management_information_system.htm
3.